That Old Black Magic
by The Man with the Silver Tongue
Summary: Crossover AU. Sucy is expelled from Luna Nova after a prank of hers goes too far, injuring Akko severely and causing Lotte to break ties with her completely. She receives a letter about a transfer to Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. A tale of reflection, alienation and queerness ensues when she meets a certain moonchild on the train to her new school life. REVIEW!
1. Chapter 1

Sucy Manbavaran had no one to say goodbye to as she entered Platform 9 3/4 in King's Cross Station. Not that this bothered her; she had no one to go home to when she was expelled from her previous school, Luna Nova Magical Academy, and she had no one to send her off when she first enrolled either. It was a potion brewing done awry that had sealed her nail in the coffin. Nearly killing her fellow classmate, Akko, with a potent, forbidden potion by putting some in her drink during the lunch hour proved to be the final straw. The only accepting magical school was Hogwarts, a school in Scotland that proved to be full of acclaimed alumni and headed by one of the most powerful wizards of all time, Albus Dumbledore.

…Of course, this is all known by research of the school. Sucy didn't exactly know nor care for the entire story surrounding this school. Since she didn't have Lotte around anymore, she couldn't be arsed to look it up herself.

A bright red train blew its whistle, signaling the students to make haste and get onto the train. On it, in gold lettering read: _Hogwarts Express_. Packing away her suitcase into the luggage compartment, she entered the train, not wanting to linger out on the platform amongst the sentimental families.

Most of the compartments were full by the time Sucy had boarded. Some students looked out at her, gawking at her if as they'd seen a house elf attempting to shag a dementor. She eventually settled for the only _near_ -empty compartment she could find. A pale, blonde witch reading an upside down magazine with vivid, moving images on the cover. Sucy sat down quietly so as not to alert her, The other witch simply turned a page, engrossed enough not to notice her presence. With a contented sigh, Sucy leaned back in her seat, shutting her eyes for the long trip ahead.

* * *

A rustling stirred Sucy awake. Two striking azure eyes met her own, uncovered burgundy; the girl who was reading the magazine in the car when Sucy first entered had seemingly grown bored of her tabloid and was now inches away from Sucy's face. She didn't know how long the blonde had her eyes on her but it was strange nonetheless.

The two witches locked eyes for some long seconds before the blonde girl spoke first. "You're quite queer, if I do say so…" Her ethereal breathy voice trailed off like a daydream, her breath tickling Filipina witch's nose. Her lips were half-parted as if she were pondering her next sentence. It did not come.

"How do you figure." Sucy replied sardonically in her lifeless tone. She did not want to get into a conversation right now.

"I dunno… Just a hunch. Your accent only affirms it...along with your eyes and hair and skin-"

"Oh, grandmother, what big teeth you have!" Sucy replied with a sarcastic chuckle.

The girl either did not understand the reference or chose to ignore it as she continued on. "…All quite lovely and exotic. Where _are_ you from exactly?"

"Depends on who you ask. " Sucy closed her eyes and leaned back again. She felt odd about being complimented and brushed them off nonchalantly; they were the first positive things she 's heard about herself.

The other girl sat back into her seat and drew something from her pocket. "Are you hungry? We still have a ways to go before we reach Hogwarts. I bought an extra Chocolate Frog and Cauldron Cake in case you woke up."

Sucy did not quite understand what the girl was talking about and opened her eyes to see a wriggling chocolate frog in the girl's hand. Sucy's expression quickly turned to disgust and she visibly cringed.

"No thanks. I don't take candy from strangers. Especially chocolate drenched amphibians."

The girl shrugged. "Suit yourself, I suppose. They're delicious. Not real frogs, mind you." She bit the head off of the frog and Sucy turned away so as not to witness anymore of the disturbing act.

"I should introduce myself. My name is Luna Lovegood." The blonde said, genially extending her hand. Being that was the hand the frog was in, Sucy regarded coolly and did not take it.

"Sucy."

Luna retracted her hand simply. "Well met."

"Are all British like you? Eating live frogs and watching others while they sleep?"

Luna cocked her head with a small smile. "Well, there were Nargles on your big hat and they were dancing and making quite a ruckus. I only watched them to see if they would do anything mischievous."

The pink haired witch raised her visible eyebrow. "What's a Nargle?"

"Mischievous little creatures. They like to steal things and often infest places that they shouldn't."

"Oh." There was a long pause where neither of them spoke. Luna stared preciously at the other witch with an odd, widening smile.

"I think we'll get along nicely," she stated before casting her gaze to the window. "It seems we're here already. How does time fly…"

Sucy's eyes shot to the window and lo and behold - a castle, monumental in size, with a thousand lights shining like beacons into the ink-black Scottish night. A sigh of disdain for Luna for interrupting her sleep and causing her discomfort was mixed with a gasp of cheer awe.

"Magical, isn't it?" Luna said.

* * *

Sucy's head was spinning. Entering the Great Hall was an aural and visual assault on the senses. It made Luna Nova look like a one-room school cottage. She followed Luna who apologetically told her about the House system and that they would be separated thenceforth unless Sucy managed to get sorted into the House Luna was in.

"I highly doubt we'll be in the same House or whatever," Sucy said with smirk. "I'm a different odd than you are. I guess I'll be seeing you in the corridors."

With a wave, Sucy and Luna parted to their respective places.

By the time Sucy's name was called, she was close to drifting off and drooling on the table. She didn't really care too much for the announcements, not even Dumbledore, who's calm, genial but powerful speaking voice served nothing but an aural melatonin.

"Sucy Manbavaran!"

Sucy shot awake and subjected her dazed view to the headmaster, speaking next to a battered, tattered old brown hat. She lazily rose from her seat and slugged her way over to the seat, plopping down and removing her wide-brimmed witch's hat.

Upon her head, the Sorting Hat was placed. She nearly jumped out of her skin when the almost immediate shout of "SLYTHERIN!" came from the Hat.

As Sucy passed Luna on her way to her table, she could have sworn she saw a brief flash of disgust on her features...replaced by her signature off-kilter smile a second later.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

 **A/N: Apologies about the long time between chapters. I'm a game dev at night and my days are taken up with important stuff. Without any ado, here's chapter two electric boogaloo.**

 **For all intents and purposes, all characters in this story are about fifteen years of age. Thank you for the follows and reviews.**

 _Her trademark s_ _mirk_ _was slowly replaced with a burning, rising dread and panic. Lotte had to push her out of the way to get to Akko. Sucy had_ _experimented_ _with fungi before... How come this little brew, a simple prank, go this wrong?_

 _"You've gone too far this time, Sucy!"_

 _Akko_ _'s skin was flushed and her eyes were rolling up into her head. Sweat slithered down her swollen cheeks and to touch her skin was as if putting one's hand to a steaming kettle. Except there were no funny effects like smoke blowing out her friend's ears. She was ill to the point that she needed emergency attention._

 _Lotte was seething; this was the only time she saw the usually meek, Finnish witch so angry._ _The look of anger in her former friend's eyes froze Sucy to the spot. Lotte's hand went back and_ _launched_ _forward_ _-_

The resulting impact woke Sucy with a start. Her breathing, labored and sharp, was drowned out as reality grounded her again with the excited first-day of classes chatter of students as a flurry of shirts, cloaks, bras and skirts along the scents of at least twenty different perfumes filled her nose. It was enough to make her head swim.

Sucy's eyes darted around before she let out a sigh, her rapid-fire heartbeat slowing down. A glance at her old Luna Nova robes gave her a twinge of sadness when she picked them up. She let the familiar fabric slip through her fingers onto the floor before unpacking her brand new Hogwarts robes.

As Sucy slugged her way to her first class, Potions, a dreamy voice came from beside her.

"Off to your first class, I presume?" Luna's shimmery golden locks and spacy, baby blue eyes came into view.

Sucy merely nodded, keeping her leisurely pace as most students rushed by.

"Excited?"

"Do I look it?" Sucy shot back rather testily. .

Luna giggled. "I wouldn't be too sure. You keep your cards so close to you that you smother them."

Sucy rolled her eyes and turned a corner as Luna kept pace. "That's a pretentious way of saying 'you don't give a shit about anything'. Where the heck did you learn that idiom?"

"I made it up~" Luna said, grinning widely.

"Surprise, surprise."

Luna and Sucy bickered back and forth until Luna stopped at a certain door. "Well, here's your class. Mine is a little further down from here."

Sucy looked up at the nameplate besides the door and sucked in a breath before looking up at Luna. "I'll be looking out for you." The blonde witch said. "If you need a friend, and it looks like you do, you can always find me either in the common room or by the lake. See you around…~"

With that, Luna Lovegood left Sucy to her devices and without further contemplation, Sucy entered the classroom.

* * *

The morning was, by large, uneventful. Potions gained a few hundred points from her participation alone due to her thorough knowledge of the subject. The professor, Severus Snape, kept a rather watchful eye on her for the rest of the class in subdued surprise that a first-year could pull out this much knowledge aside from the know-it-all Hermione Granger.

Snape had pulled Sucy aside and questioned her, much to her chagrin, about her prior education and experience with potions. Mentioning something about "talking to the headmaster about being the first first-year to be placed in advanced potions", Sucy was dismissed and continued the rest of her morning classes, staying mostly quiet as she had the eye of her fellow Slytherins on her and wanted to make it to lunch without anymore uncomfortable asides.

However, that didn't stop people from trying to speak to her. She went to sit farthest from the rest of her House to eat her lunch and gain some much needed peace to think only to have Pansy Parkingson and Daphne Greengrass sat on either side of her.

Sucy continued to eat in silence before having her plate pulled away by Greengrass; under her cloak, her left hand fingered her wand.

"Can I help you two?" Sucy asked.

"Just wanted to say "hi"," started Pansy.

"Get to know a fellow classmate. I never seen our Head of House look that way before," Daphne finished.

"Especially not at some first year." Pansy added rather bitterly.

Sucy raised an eyebrow and reached for her plate with her right hand. "What can I say. I never slept through my classes." She thought back to Akko and felt a brief smirk go across her features before being sobered by the state that she had left her former friend in.

Daphne pulled her plate farther from the Filipina witch's reach, a sour grin crossing her beautifully noble features. Her silver eyes glinted with intrigue.

"You're a transfer?"

"Yep." Sucy's plate slid back to her and she began to eat once more. Pansy's mouth hung open and Daphne let out a gasp of surprise.

"You know wordless magic? That's-"

"Only a higher year student is capable of that but even then it's difficult!"

Sucy internally snickered as she slid her wand back to her pocket under her cloak.

"You must be a 100% pure-blood with abilities like that," Pansy said.

Sucy shrugged and finished up her plate. "My blood is red like anyone else. I don't feel too special."

Pansy and Daphne only exchanged incredulous glances as Sucy rose and slipped out from her seat at the table. "You…You don't know what "pureblood" means, do you…?" Daphne asked.

"Nope. Sounds exclusive. Or a race from a fantasy light novel." Sucy replied. "Either way, I don't really care if my blood is pure or not. As long as it's in me, that's all that matters to me."

Sucy inclined her head toward the two of her upperclassmen and left toward the exit; the bewildered pair stifling snickers at her ignorance.

Sucy chose to ignore it; she didn't need anything else weighing on her plate. Especially from snobs that thought that their blood was hot shit. Sucy couldn't understand this place.

* * *

By the time classes finished, Sucy was exhausted. She wanted to avoid the Great Hall and the Common Room due to the noise she may encounter there so instead, she went to the lake.

Luna was sitting on the ground against a tree, staring out over the icy black brine. "Seems like you needed a friend." She said as Sucy sat down beside her.

"Mm."

"What made you not go to your clique of Slytherin girls?" Luna asked.

"They're not my friends." Sucy retorted. "You must be horrible at reading body language. I clearly didn't care company much, especially theirs. They remind me of someone I knew." Sucy thought back to Diana with her scrunched nose and condescending pompousness. "Oddly enough, the person I'm referring to looked like an older, stuckup version of you."

Luna's eyebrow arched up and she laughed. "I suppose I have an evil doppelganger."

"..."

 _Sucy didn't hear her company; she was back in Luna Nova. It was lights out and she had woken up to go to the bathroom. Lotte was sleeping quietly in her bunk. Akko was not._

 _Sucy couldn't help but be curious; her roommate and friend never woke up in the night. She slept through the night like a snoring log. Nevertheless, she brushed it off and went to take off more pertinent matters._

 _Entering the corridors, she could hear faint movements and voices the closer she got to the bathroom. Sucy approached stealthily so as not to alert whomever may be prowling around at this hour._

 _As she got to a door, she heard a out of breath whine come from the shower stalls in the back beyond the toilets._

" _D-Diana…~ Please…no…" There was no mistaking Akko's Japanese accent. Sucy's heart began to drop as she slipped through the door, closing it quietly behind her._

 _Ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom…_

 _Step, step, step…_

 _Then they came into view… Diana Cravendish's blonde locks plastered against her face from sweat yet still framing it in her infuriatingly beautiful way and, then shifting from their down to her finger pumping away into the folds of another witch that made Sucy feel a sharp sting of jealously, anger, and…longing._

 _Akko._

 _Atsuko Kagari. Groaning, whining, twisting, panting. Under a spell that no potion of hers could conjure._

 _She didn't bother to be quiet in leaving._

"Sucy? Sucy?" Luna had moved in front of her face, only inches away. She reached toward the pinkette…

"This is your fault…" Sucy suddenly murmured.

"Huh…? Sucy, wh-" In the next second, Luna was on her back with Sucy over her, white hot rage clouding her normally stoic demeanor. Luna's eyes widened with surprise as Sucy rose her fist with vicious intent…only to have hot tears lightly rain upon her face.

Sucy's body convulsed in silence as the tears leaked down her cheeks and involuntarily she tried to wipe her tears away as they came immediately. Luna grabbed her wrists before she could do so and pulled herself up, bringing the girl into her arms.

"D-Don't touch- Don't…don't touch me…" Sucy stammered under her breath yet she didn't resist or push Luna away. Luna only stared beyond the sobbing witch into the black lake as she calmly stroked Sucy's long, fuchsia hair. They shared a long silence until Sucy's tears ran dry.

Luna knew that even then Sucy wouldn't want to talk about it. It was clearly still fresh in the girl's mind.

"When you're ready, okay?" The blonde witch's voice maintained its calming dreamy quality with a newfound sincerity for the other's emotional state. "You needed a friend tonight. Don't be a stranger."

Sucy nodded and then rose to her feet as did Luna. She gazed up into the sky, her namesake casting a beautiful ethereal light upon them from the cosmos.

"After all, people are strange when you're a stranger." Luna added.

Sucy couldn't think of a more appropriate statement. She wiped her eyes and was lead back to the dungeons where the Slytherin dormitories were.

"Will you be okay?" Luna expressed her worry with Sucy only nodding. Fatigue had long set in and all Sucy wanted to do was sleep. Luna watched as she went down and disappeared down the steps leading to the common room. With a sigh, Luna wondered how much longer she could keep up her own charade as she returned to her own House dorms and retired for the night.


	3. Intermission I

Intermission I - Breathe (Sucy)

 _I never understood the whole "emotions" thing._

 _My mother always buried such things. I was the oldest of three and I had to be the example of efficiency and strength. I stomached it. I took the burden and shouldered it with no complaints. I never cried. I never screamed. I said nothing._

 _I feel nothing._

 _Strange… Pain, to me, was only a character mutation rather than being human. A defect. My mother knew best. Then what is this pressure in my chest?_

 _I don't understand._

 _I undress in front the mirror in the bathroom._

 _I remember these scars. A flash of lightning, punishment for failures. I wear them as normally as underwear. I wear them as normally as this suffocating aloofness._

 _Brush aside the mane that my mother lent me to see both eyes. These eyes my mother made me... Bottomless pits that barely betray the sediment stirred up in their soulless depths. Not even to me._

 _Deep within the mirror I can see my enemy. It pointed between my eyes. And then an explosion of glass, lacerating my skin, the taste of copper so familiar on my lips. I am thrown backwards onto my hard surface of my bed…_

….And I breathe.

I remember I can breathe.

I stared up at the ceiling as the sounds of hustle and bustle that permeated the girl's dormitories in the mornings slowly came back into focus. The violent waves of the lake surged outside of the windows.

I could distinctly hear rain.


End file.
